A Fantastic Weekend

We are a week away from returning to Singapore. This is going to be our first trip back to Singapore since we moved to Darwin in end January. I know it is not that long a time but honestly we are super excited! I am counting down to see my friends and family and just being with all of them again. One week is going to fly by and Sang and I will make sure we cherish every moment that comes along.

For today, let me share our weekend experience with you. This weekend was another one that was just fantabulous. It started with us having coffee at Harriet's again. Cheeky little Jules purposely decided to make Sang a special cup of hot chocolate to make it all the more painful for Sang to stir it and get into it. While there, Jules asked us if we were keen to join her on a trip to Corroboree Billabong the following day. I think you should know what our answer was.

After brekky (see what I did there), Sang and I headed to Pearl and Sid's place for what Sid termed, "Sid's Bootcamp 101". OK, in all fairness, I added the 101 but that's besides the point. So anyway, we were in for a gardening bonanza that would rip into our muscles and burn our fat reserves. Sid had ordered mulch to top up his fascinating garden and we offered extra hands to get the job done quicker. 

Getting the mulch in was a challenge in its own right. The truck driver could have made things a lot easier by trying to explain what the situation was and we would have worked something out together. However, he decided to keep mum and and shake his head in disappointment when he saw the walkway. Eventually after some trial and error and reversing to and fro, we managed to get the mulch off the truck. 

We discovered this in Sid's garden!

The work then started with Sid and I taking turns to use the single spade to scoop the mulch into his wheelbarrow before wheeling it off to the different parts of the garden. Meanwhile, Pearl and Sang made a trip down to Bunnings to get another spade so that we could expedite the job. The whole process took almost 4 hours, with us having intermittent breaks. I learnt quite a fair bit on gardening down to the technique of raking, shoveling and wheel-barrow use.

Sang decided to get in on the manual labour as well and contributed with the shoveling as well.  After about 3 hours, we had gotten the mulch into the first two gardening pits/bays (not sure what its called). There was still one last pit at the back to fill but we had all become too tired and we also had to head down to Shoal Bay to dump some of the dead leaves. 

At 3.45pm, we made our way to Shoal Bay, offloaded all the fallen leaves and headed back to Sid and Pearl's abode before Sang and I headed home.

Shortly after, we met up with the entire bunch again at Dragon Restaurant for a fancy dinner. Just before entering the restaurant, I got a call from the Police. They had found all my camera gear that had been stolen and said they would return it to me once they were done dusting for prints. AMAZING! Back to the dinner... It was organised by Linda who also prepared little flower buckets for the mothers in the house. It was a good meal and after some fun and laughter, we headed home.

I watched a boring match that saw United win 1-0 before I retired to bed worn out from the day's physical exertion.

This morning, we met up the Botanic Gardens for coffee before making our way down to Corroboree. Scotty and his understudy, Charlie, picked us up from the tavern and brought us into the billabong. We then spent a good 2 hours plus on the boat marveling at the wetlands and watching birds and crocodiles going about their daily routine. I'll let the pictures do the talking here but the entire experience was just superb. I was also very grateful to everyone on board for allowing me to set up my camera at the hull. Pictures wise, I wasn't too happy with what I got so you can bet that I will be heading down again soon. Nothing much happened once we got home and so I will leave you to enjoy the photos for now. See ya!

That's all folks!